Career Journeys in Talent Acquisition: Alexandra Hunt

Thanks for reading! This series is designed to shine a spotlight on Talent Acquisition professionals and highlight their career journeys and learnings so far. Today, we're joined by Alexandra Hunt. If you'd like to be next, please reach out to a TTC Community Manager.

Introduce yourself:

I’m Alexandra Hunt, a Talent Acquisition professional with 14 years’ experience, who’s passionate about DEI and Engagement, and has most recently hired into SaaS across Europe as a team lead at Apptio, a category-leading SaaS solution for TBM (Technology Business Management), FinOps, and Agile portfolio management. 

Can you walk us through the key milestones in your career in the talent acquisition space? What were some pivotal moments or decisions that shaped your journey?

Like many recruiters, I fell into the industry, starting my journey in the agency world.  I recruited HR professionals into well-known brands across London, which gave me a great foundation to understand how the different parts of HR work together within a business.  After starting as a Sourcer and climbing the ladder over 7 years to lead the HR recruiting team, I knew I wanted to hop to the other side of the fence and move in-house, and ended up joining one of my clients as many agency recruiters do!

Seeing things from inside a HR team really changed my perspective, and while I believed more than ever that anyone can pivot into in-house from agency, it showed me that the partnership between TA and hiring managers is truly critical. While it mimicked the agency/client relationship, it had to go to deeper levels to really understand the nuances and culture within each team, and I loved that level of understanding I was able to gain.  It was also nice to branch out of just hiring for HR roles!

After a few years in house, I landed a role at Apptio which was, at the time, owned by Vista Equity Partners.  Starting in another position where it was just me in TA on the ground in Europe, I decided to head in and truly be myself, given I was joining a new company where I had no previous connections. The pace of this role, and the requirements of Vista, were a shock to my system initially, and it was a huge time of change for the business. They’d implemented cognitive aptitude tests, increased the number of open roles, and also wanted to grow the HR team. All in all, it was a period of learning how to pivot fast, firefight, but also be forward thinking with projects across engagement, D&I and the implementation of a new ATS – all while managing a high number of open roles. This was a pivotal moment in my career, because I truly became the SME within Europe for much more than “just” TA!

Another pivotal moment was opening the Centre of Excellence for engineering in Krakow. A project that started during the COVID pandemic and was initially planned to be a team of 6-12 people, spiraled to eventually being a 200+ office and led to me hiring an entire HR and TA team and allowing me to step once more into management. I led a project to create a promotional video to bring our team into the public eye and visited the office to deliver interview training (which I had written) to the Poland management team.  I loved being able to show my team and the wider business how much more TA professionals can get involved in as the face of an organisation bringing in new talent.

Now that my Apptio role has finished, and I’ve enjoyed maternity leave with my little one, I am looking for the next exciting chapter of my professional life. I’ll finish this part by saying that the last few months of job searching has taught me some ways that I can certainly improve my own processes and ways of working to be better for my applicants in the future. You never stop learning in TA.

In this rapidly evolving industry, what strategies or practices have you adopted to continuously enhance your skills and stay ahead of the curve? Do you have any resources or learning methods you'd recommend to others?

There are so many ways to do this, it’s just about finding what works for you.  For me, it’s being active on my social media in terms of looking at Linkedin and also listening to Podcasts.  I find that podcasts are a great way to hear about new things and stay up to date, and I used to listen on the commute whereas now I listen in the car while my little one naps!  Podcasts such as "Recruiting Future" and "The Talent Cast" have kept me updated on new trends and best practices.

Attending industry events such as RecFest, when budget allows, is another excellent way to learn and enhance skills. These events offer opportunities to see speakers on stage and network with professionals you might only know through LinkedIn.

I also think you can learn in the workplace too, as I mentioned before through doing new things like video creation, and I carved out time for engagement and D&I work at Apptio.  This wasn’t just about being an ERG member – for 6 months I covered D&I and this happened to fall across Diversity Month so I got to find and engage with three speakers for our key regions from my network.

This leads nicely to another place I think you cannot underestimate as a source of learning, and that is online communities.  The beauty of networks like The Talent Community is that while often you get out what you put in as an active member, you can also browse channels at leisure if you’re stacked with your day to day (or on maternity leave like me and not currently in the corporate world).  I have made some great connections through this community and love being a part of it!

What has been the most challenging aspect of your career in talent acquisition, especially when you were actively seeking work? How did you overcome it, and what advice would you offer to others facing similar hurdles?

I am very fortunate that in my career to date that I have not really had to spend more than a few weeks looking for a new role.  Two of my three in-house roles I was approached about by hiring managers, and they were both perfect for me (at the time), and I can say definitively that isn’t the case now.  TA roles are getting hundreds of applications in days, and that’s a scary market to be in.  It is also hard to navigate levels when looking at open roles, too.  Each business has its own leveling structure and if your current/previous title doesn’t align with the levels of a place you’re applying to it can be a confusing process. 

So, while I can’t give any advice about successfully seeking work this time around (yet!) what I would say for those seeking out TA roles is first and foremost – be your authentic self.  Don’t dim your shine for anyone and turn up to those interviews 100% you.  I would also remind you that it takes a lot, and I mean a lot of work right now to find roles and get interviews.  With that in mind, I would argue that when you’re not hearing back and you’re getting rejected for roles that you are genuinely qualified for (whether that’s at application stage or post interview), it’s the market, it’s not you. That is something I am constantly having to remind myself of as a new mum navigating matrescence at the same time as having to look for a new role.  “It’s not me, it’s the market” – my mantra, over and over again.

Finally, utilise that network you’ve spent your career creating!  Contact job posters, message people who have championed you in the past, post stories, share your thoughts and feelings.  The former are useful and you never know where a connection can lead you, and the latter is cathartic which is absolutely of value when job hunting. 

The recruiting world can be fast-paced and demanding. How do you strike a balance between your professional commitments and personal life? Are there specific routines or rituals you follow?

Balancing professional commitments and personal life is something I thought would be easy but actually requires continuous effort. Over time, I’ve learned to be protective of my personal time. When managing a team, I was conscious of preventing burnout, so I made sure to model a healthy work-life balance myself.

Working across time zones often means taking late calls, so I advocate for starting a bit later the next day if you’ve been on late the night before. While it’s important not to miss standing meetings, protecting personal time in this way can be an easy win. If my team were constantly on late debriefs, I would check in with the hiring lead and adjust the sync.

I also think it’s really important to remember that the world isn’t going to burn when you’re not online. If there’s a real emergency, your stakeholders and team have your number. If you’re lucky like I have been, you’ve also got a manager who will give you ground cover and deal with escalations.  I try to make sure that when I am off, I am off.  If you’ve done a handover and then you’re dipping in and out of things, that actually makes it harder for the person or people covering you.  Remembering that helps me to switch off. 

Finally, you can’t be your best self at work if you don’t allow yourself time off – take that annual leave and switch off your slack notifications off of an evening, you have earned it!

As someone involved in talent acquisition, you've likely witnessed various technology and trend shifts. Which technologies or trends do you believe have had the most significant impact on the industry, and how have they influenced your role?

The pace of technological change within the TA space is astonishing. The arrival of AI for LinkedIn posts initially blew my mind, but then it made perfect sense.  In terms of significance, the ability of (some) ATS’s to automate workflows, and setting up actions in complex Smartsheet trackers certainly made some of my role at Apptio easier.  I created a Smartsheet for role approvals at Apptio, in which I could enter everything the hiring manager wanted, and depending on what drop downs I selected it would email everyone that needed to agree and sign something off in order.  Once everyone had completed it and attached what we needed, the role would be approved and off we went! 

When it comes to tech advancements within TA, especially AI, it’s important to try and embrace it and see it as a support rather than a threat.  Try to lean in rather than away!

For those entering the talent acquisition space or those looking to pivot within it, what's the one piece of practical advice you'd give to help them thrive, especially if they are actively job-seeking?

If you’re in HR and looking to pivot into TA then you likely know (mostly) what you’re getting into. If you’re looking for your first taste of TA having never worked in it before, then in my personal experience the best place to start is agency side, as this is a great grounding in sourcing, process and finding your personal brand. You will see the good, the bad, and the ugly in the agency world and it’ll show you where you think you belong longer term. 

Your personal brand will be your best tool in the world of TA. Harking back to my earlier point, authenticity is key. Think about who you are, and how you want to present yourself during the candidate process.  People are not just assessing the company you work for or the role you’re telling them about, they’re assessing you.  It’s not just about if you know what you are talking about, but it’s how you talk about it and how you answer their questions.  My Apptio role gave me the opportunity to partner at a senior level, working with the GM of EMEA and various VPs and C Suite Execs across Europe and HQ.  Having a strong sense of my personal brand and how I wanted to operate by this point in my career made me ready for this challenge and level of exposure, as I had the confidence to speak up and push back when needed.

I think it’s also worth noting that you do need to have natural passion for TA for it to work out.  It can be a repetitive role in many ways. During the pandemic I’m pretty sure my now-husband could have sold Apptio’s brand himself after hearing me talk about it so much! Natural passion for it stops that getting annoying and boring, and also means you’ll keep searching for updates to your elevator pitch to make sure you are doing justice to the brand, team and role.

Finally, the market is wild right now, so keep your chin up.  Remember what I said earlier – it’s the market, it’s not you!